This is the countdown – I start my “Great Diet” on Friday. I have been in Prep Mode for the past week. Reading about weight loss, thinking about diet approaches, reflecting on what fat has meant in my life.
This week I was reading an article that reminded me of something really important – I can’t “think” my way through a diet. I can’t prepare for every possibility. Just knowing what caused the overeating will not necessarily stop the overeating.
A deep, profound commitment to “not eat compulsively” comes before everything else. Only when I am eating to live, eating a well balanced food plan – only then will I confront the real feelings that I have managed to eat away.
I’ve been thinking about all the ways I manage to make the “bad feelings” go away – and I must admit that I have recently accelerated my use of all of these techniques. I am avoiding some very real feeling by not allowing myself any quiet time. I have the TV on obsessively when I am home – I need non-stop company. I live alone and I am constantly listening to TV – no matter how mindless it is.
What else? – avoiding real discussions with friends. Keeping things on the surface. I find that I am even having trouble writing in a journal – I am not allowing myself to be in touch with my feelings right now. And fixating on food helps that. I fixate on what to eat, when to eat, why I shouldn’t eat, why I’m going to eat anyway – and I could go on and on.
Whatever am I going to do when I stop overeating on Friday. I don’t know. I will blog. I will blog some more. I will attend some online OA meetings during my eating times – well that would be all the time.
I will be present. I will feel those feelings. I will feel scared and angry and frustrated – and it will all look like food cravings – but I will stick with this confused mass of cravings until I can identify the real feeling. I am scared of this. I am so in my head that I am scared to death to get into my heart. My heart is needy. My heart is scared. My head can deal with all the crap around me, but – how will my heart survive?
I can so identify with the place you find yourself in right now, but I want to let you know that recovery is possible. I am a person who has lost 120 pounds through Overeaters Anonymous. In fact, it’s more than that but that’s the number at my last weigh in. The weight didn’t come off because I had a perfect diet and exercised like a fiend, but simply by working a program of recovery through 12 steps. I continue to work them every day. I wish I could give you a hug and let you know everything will be okay. Just know that life is a one day at a time proposition and that you do not have to hang onto the prison that has shielded you for so long. You are not alone on this journey.
By: Kathy on November 20, 2007
at 7:54 pm
Thank you – I tried OA a long time ago, but there was no real recovery in the groups that were close by. I am going to try telephone and online meetings – should be able to find good recovery and find a sponsor that way. I appreciate your support.
By: dancingdolphin on November 21, 2007
at 12:06 am